Centro Ybor Offer Disrupts Meeting

By ELLEN GEDALIUS The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 24, 2007

TAMPA - City Councilman Charlie Miranda sat quietly as his colleagues on the council raised questions about a deal involving the debt-ridden Centro Ybor complex, wondering if it really was best for the city.

After hearing everyone's complaints, Miranda said the proposed agreement might not be perfect, but he didn't hear anyone proposing anything better. Then he said if someone offered the city 50 cents on the dollar, or roughly $4.5 million to pay half of the city's Centro Ybor loan, he'd take it.

To everyone's surprise, someone sitting in council chambers stood up and said he was game.

The offer by Jacob "Booky" Buchman, a well-heeled businessman who has had a stake in several Ybor City projects, sparked perhaps one of the most off-the-wall city council sessions in recent history, a flurry of closed-door meetings and, ultimately, a decision to hold off on voting on the Centro Ybor deal for another week.

"We do not conduct business by auction," City Attorney David Smith told council members. "We do not have a circus atmosphere."

Technically, the council was meeting as a Community Redevelopment Agency to decide whether to approve an arrangement with Chicago-based real estate investment company M&J Wilkow Ltd. Wilkow bought the struggling Centro Ybor entertainment complex last year.

Under terms of the arrangement, Wilkow would pay the city $100,000 up front. In addition, every year for the next six, the company would pay the city about $25,000. The payment would increase to $35,000 a year for the following six years. All the money would help the city pay down its debt on the project.

The city's taxpayers long have been on the hook to subsidize Centro Ybor. In 1997, the city guaranteed a $9 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help finance the center.

"If someone wants to pay $4.5 million, God bless that individual," Miranda said. "I'll shine his shoes every Thursday at City Hall for free."

The city hoped that Centro Ybor would generate enough money that it could pay off its debt. That didn't happen, and the city pays about $770,000 a year in debt service.

Of that $770,000, nearly $200,000 is paid with tax dollars generated at Centro Ybor. Tax increment finance districts, or TIFs, are common throughout the city. Essentially, taxes collected above a base level are spent on improvements in the neighborhood.

Several Ybor City property owners said they didn't think that TIF money should continue to pay off the debt. Some of those complaining were long-time Ybor City businessmen Alan Kahana and Joseph Capitano.

Kahana and Capitano made a bid to buy Centro Ybor, but the seller opted to sell it to Wilkow instead. Kahana could not be reached for comment, and Capitano declined comment.

Meanwhile, Buchman and Capitano are owners of Buc-Cap, the company that owns the S. Agliano & Sons Fish Co. property on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.

It was unclear late Thursday whether Kahana and Capitano were partnering with Buchman on Centro Ybor. Also unclear is exactly how Buchman would benefit from helping pay off the city's second mortgage. Buchman declined to comment.

Top city officials - including attorney David Smith, chief of staff Darrell Smith and economic development administrator Mark Huey - met with Kahana, Capitano, Buchman and their lawyers.

After the closed-door meeting, David Smith told the council that the city needed more time.

Later, Smith said that Buchman wasn't willing to agree to some of the terms outlined by the city.

"They wanted the city to take risks and guarantees that we don't want to do," Smith said, declining to elaborate. He also called the offer "dubious."

David Smith and Darrell Smith said they thought if the offer were legitimate, it would have been made sooner.

"This is not the way we do business - coming before council after we've done a lot of work over many months," Darrell Smith said. "We realize it's a very complex arrangement. We don't like to do business with anyone standing up at council and trying to make a deal. This is not the courthouse steps. This is not an auction."

Mayor Pam Iorio could not be reached for comment late Thursday, but Smith said "she was unhappy with the way it makes the city look, and she's right. This circuslike atmosphere is very embarrassing to the city."

Researcher Buddy Jaudon contributed to this report. Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius

@tampatrib.com.